The debate is opened in Algeria and India

It had forgotten them. Sovereign wealth funds, like other international asset managers, experienced significant losses due to the crisis. However, they seem to have been known to let pass the storm and they are now return investing in the four corners of the world. But we make no mistake: this return of sovereign wealth funds on the front of the stage takes are very different from those observed before the crisis.

Undoubtedly, sovereign wealth funds are back. Africa, Asia and even Latin America see rise to new organizations. The debate is opened in Algeria and India. Nigeria is already vote legislation. Angola, the Indonesia, and the Mongolia come the next step in creating their own sovereign wealth funds. Saudi Arabia and the Malaysia, who already had funds of this type, come to create new structures, Hassana Investment Co. and 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), both primarily intended to invest in foreign assets. Latin America is not at rest. End of 2008, the Brazil has a sovereign wealth Fund. The country is now in command of over 230 billion reserves and, as if this were not enough, discovered oilfields will continue to feed more beautiful the country's finances.

Today, there are in total in the world some 50 institutions of this type which manage some 3,000 billion. The most important are the Middle East and Asia, area in which differ in particular China and Singapore. Some, such as Adia (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority), the largest in the world considering the weight of the assets, employing nearly one thousand people, which gives them an ability to own investment far superior to that of other institutions that make their first not as Central Asian SWFs. In any event, all these institutions are deeply reconsider their strategies and their choice of investment. For them, as for the other managers of assets in the world, the crisis is not just financial or economic, it is also cognitive. The world of investment, including sovereign wealth funds, has just discovered that investing in the countries of the OECD can be more risky than it seems, even when it comes to the first world power.

Until recently, invest in the countries of the OECD was supposedly "low risk, low return" invest in emerging markets was "high risk, high return". These two equations were stolen in chips with the international crisis of 2008. American companies which benefited from better credit ratings have disappeared from the surface of the globe or are bankrupt. However, some emerging countries now have premiums of risk comparable to those of many of their peers of the OECD. The crisis calls to reconsider the simplifications we used to, including the vision of the world inherited from the century past that divides the world in emerging and developed countries. After the crisis, the boundaries between these categories fade little by little. Invest on the industrialized first world products can be highly risky. Conversely, investing in emerging markets may not constitute the exercise high risk was in the past while continuing to offer very attractive performance opportunities.

For some sovereign wealth funds, this cognitive crisis resulted by concrete actions. Temasek's Singapore, one of the major references of the universe of sovereign wealth funds, did not hesitate to radically reconsider its overall investment strategy. Current 2009, the Fund has decided to rely even more on emerging markets, by increasing the share devoted to this type of assets to the record figure of 80 and reducing to a minimum of 20 than in the OECD countries. Almost simultaneously with the announcement of this reconstruction, the Fund was capital of Bank of America and Barclays, while increasing its positions in the China Construction Bank and Standard Chartered. The signal could not be clearer: "we build on the emerging markets, either directly, through outlets of participation in their banks and businesses, or indirectly, through outlets of participation in banks and the OECD but companies deploying significant activity in emerging countries." To dispel any doubt, if necessary, the Fund has also opened, in 2009, in relatively remote areas of its national base, by placing teams in the Mexico and the Brazil, to make investments in the region.

Other funds now follow the footsteps of Temasek. For example, ICG, the other great sovereign Fund of the country, decided to put two of its senior officials in London and New York, to promote its investment in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as regards the first, and the Americas, North, but especially in the South, which is the second respectively. Chinese sovereign fund CIC (which manages more than 200 billion) also made purchases in areas such as Central Asia or Southeast Asia. During the month of October alone, the Fund bought for about $ 4 billion of assets on emerging such as the Indonesia, Singapore and the Kazakhstan. During the summer 2009, he also has an international Board which includes, for example, Arminio Fraga, the former Governor of the Central Bank of the Brazil, evidence that he is also interested in Latin America.

SWFs in the Middle East build, too, more and more on the emerging. It is therefore not surprising that Aabar Investments, a subsidiary of the giant Ipic of Abu Dhabi, has invested in October 2009, nearly $ 330 million in an equity participation in Banco Santander Brasil, thus gaining 0.6 of the subsidiary Brazilian of the Banco de Santander, which is yet another way to capitalize on the emerging (comparable to Temasek with Standard Chartered has made).

These strategic reconfiguration of sovereign wealth funds are no doubt good news for emerging markets and businesses. They are also for European businesses, especially for those who have been able to capitalize on the emerging. Another way to bet also for these new worlds.